Trip to Korea - May 2001




	Darren lives in Iksan, a few hours south of Soeul. Lisa and i spent one day in front of family mart drinking beer and people watching. A very interesting day. This was the view from our table in front of a very busy crosswalk.
	On Budda's birthday, a group of us traveled to a temple complex in the mountains. The square in the middle of the temple was filled with thousands of colored paper lanterns, each with a candle inside. After dark, they were all lit during a ceremony.
	After the sun went down, a lantern lighting ceremony started. Words and pictures cannot describe the scene in the temple square.
	On the way up to the temple, Lisa stopped to smell the flowers.
	Budda's Birthday - Just hanging out - Me, Rose, Darren and Rob
	A wide shot looking into the square. This is early in the day before all the lanterns were hung.




	Darren and Rose cutting the meat for our meal.
	One day we went to some sort of,...well we're not exactly sure what the place was because there wasn't any English spoken and Rose couldn't get a straight answer out of the locals. This is Darren, Rose and i waiting for the train. We took a lot of trains in Korea.
	We traveled for hours by train and bus and feet, only the arrive high in the mountains. It was located high in the hills with amazing scenery. And they had these carved faces everywhere.
	On the way home, we missed the train and were forced to sit in front of the train station for many hours drinking beer and waiting for the last train.
	At the festival in Chonju, Darren, Lisa and I were somehow talked into dressing up like 13th century Koreans and walking around a festival in Chonju. Darren & Lisa are supposed to be wealthy people while i'm some sort of palace guard/policeman. We were each dressed by a small army of people who layered at least 6 garments on me. From the reaction of the crowd at the festival, we were a big hit and had our pictures taken with children quite a few times. Oh,..and we were laughed at quite a bit too.
	We traveled to Yoesu City, on the south coast and started the visit with a very grueling hike up a mountain overlooking the city.
	The view from the top was one of the most amazing i've ever seen.
	A view to the east, a residential section of Yoesu.
	Halfway up the mountain there was temple that we stopped to see. This is one of the carvings that can be found under the eaves of the temple. Every temple i saw featured this amazing woodwork.
	After our hike, we spent a the first part of the evening watching a festival parade. It seemed that we were a bigger attraction then the parade itself since foreigners were a rare sight in Yoesu. Lisa met some friends who wanted to practice their English. The little guy in the front was quite intrigued with us. It was apparently his first ever encounter with foreigners.
	Later in the evening we met a group of University students and their prof celebrating a birthday. We joined them in a night of celebration and cultural unification. :-)
	After closing down this pub, our new friends dragged us around town until we found an open Soju bar. Soju being a type of vodka. We spent the rest of the night eating, drinking, talking and laughing. It was an evening i'll never forget.
	While at the Soju bar, i ate my first raw Octopus, this is actually the 2nd one i ate because the first one wasn't captured on camera.
	This is actually two pictures pasted together. After the Soju bar closed down and we said goodbye to our new friends, we strolled around a neighborhood at 5 am looking for a couple of beer to watch the sunrise with. We found a family open for business despite the hour. Here Lisa pays the lady while her husband looks on from the living quarters in the back of the store. Meanwhile i stand in the doorway, swaying back and forth snapping pictures like some sort of crazed tourist.
	After partying all night with our new friends, we ended up at a small temple over looking the ocean. This is looking down at where we started our trek.
	Lisa and Darren in a restaurant. The walls had pots embedded in them. Very cool place.
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My Trip to South Korea
In May 2001, Lisa Wilsack and I traveled to South Korea. We stayed with Darren Scott, another Stellarton native who's teaching English in Iksan City for the year. Between beers, we saw and did lots. These pictures are but a small snapshot of our trip. One of these days i'll scan more pictures but so much of Korea is beyond words and pictures. Click on a thumbnail for a larger view.